MWAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!! I LOVE Halloween!! I went out this week and bought a bag of bones (really, I bought them, I swear! or DID I? MWAHAHAHA!) and made this awesome wreath that I saw a tutorial for on Craft Magazine's blog.

That's the kid's eye view. Super spooky.

Then, I completely cracked myself up when I came up with this modification of my Sassy Maddie stamp!! Who knew cute little Maddie could be so scary?
Happy Halloween from your favorite little sassy black cat!

I hope you guys have cute trick or treaters and a fun and safe evening!

The Tyranny of Grey

Now that the dark months are upon us, it's time to reveal the un-secret - I like somewhat dark books. I like the epic wrestling of good and evil on the printed page. 1984, The Brothers Karamazov and Blindness are all in my top 10. Orwell is so brilliant, and despite his more hilarious books, he has this beautiful sense of apocalypse and soul stealing evil, as do my beloved Russians.

I listened to Anthem on my walk this weekend - I read that in college but not since - and found one of my favorite themes.

I call it the tyranny of grey.

Pick any apocalyptic story - The Road, The Stand - whatever - and each of them builds a prison out of greyness. Color is forbidden in some - 1984 and Anthem - primarily because it represents freedom and self expression - defiance of sameness, rebellion.

We are all artists, so we live and breathe (and if you're like me, wear on your hands and your clothes accidentally) color all day every day. We love it, but because we use so much of it, we take it for granted.

It would be inconceivably inhumane to steal color from a people. And when it's stolen in these stories, what color ends up symbolizing is hope.

Hope for salvation and freedom. Hope for that sacred individuality.

I knew just what stamp I wanted to color when my book ended.

And so I did. :)

Stamps: Rejoicing in Christmas Paper: Basic Grey (SU) and Basic Grey whites collection Ink: India Ink
Accessories: Radiant Rain, paintbrush, Copics, Summer Sun Reinker

Hope you had a colorful Monday. :)

It's a beautiful day!!

I know - you're thinking I mean it's a beautiful day because it's Friday. TGI, baby!!

But it's been so pretty here lately that it's truly just a beautiful day. And despite freckling, it's going to be a super weekend to be outside. So don't let it get away!

It's also Friends With Flair hop day! I haven't gotten to play in a while so I'm glad I got to ink up my October Kit of the Month - Take Time to Laugh - for today's hop.

This was a super easy card. 6x6 Tangerine Tango base. Then all the DSP is from an unknown huge bargain box I got at Joann's. I stamped the cute cloud stamp on a bunch of different pieces and cut out the clouds. I popped a few up.

I ran some May Arts ribbon through my Xyron X-runner and then just stuck it down all scrunchy on my card. I used Crumb Cake cardstock, a paper daisy, a button and two decorative SU brads to finish it off.


How is your weekend going to go? Sunny and nice I hope! Don't let it get away!!

Just Pawsing to say Thanks!

Yeah.

For a few things. We'll call it Thankful Thursday!

Thankful for fun challenges, like this one, that inspired me to make this card.

Thankful for Thursday sitcoms - the Office, Community, Outsourced. Nothing better than a good laugh.

Thankful for my eye doctor - I had to go back today because I couldn't see with my new glasses and thought I was losing my mind, and I wasn't, and she's fixing it.

Thankful for my nice plumber who is coming to fix our house tomorrow.

Thankful for the guy at AT&T that I HOPE is coming to fix my DSL for the millionth time tomorrow. (I'm ready for space internet - please let me know when that's available.)

Thankful for Secretariat - the horse and the movie. If you haven't seen this movie, stop what you're doing and go see it now.

AMAZING in every possible way. So amazing I've started calling Splotch Splotchytariat. :)

But speaking of challenges, this card was for Cindy's Hope you Can Cling To Challenge to make a square card with four additional squares. So fun!!I used Friends Fur-Ever and Nite Owl DSP for paper piecing. But my fave part is the flower. It's one of the paper daisies, that I dyed with my Tangerine Tango reinker. Then I punched a 1" circle of cardstock, stuck it in the middle and sprayed my gold Smooch Spritz on it. FUN.

So I'm just pawsing to say thanks. Hope you have a good night.

I May Carry a Purse, but I can Start an Oldsmobile With a Pen, Buddy!

So I go into a large home improvement store last week. I needed some of that little ball chain stuff with the closer thingies on it for a craft project. And yes, I said thingies. But I know what that stuff is and I know where to find it.

However, women get a different kind of help in home improvement stores than men do. It's all in the name of helpfulness, but it's definitely different. When a woman walks into a home improvement store, any available male employees give you the sort of sympathetic, pitying look a helpless creature with a purse deserves when surrounded by the smell of sawdust and big scary tools. You know the look I'm talking about.

Not that I mind help. But sometimes when I get that sort of bemused assistance I feel like saying - Lookie here. When I was 16 years old my car was a mint green 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. And it was nowhere near 1968. So every time I stopped at a stop sign, it died. This was super fun when you were all dressed up to go do something fun. I had to get out, pop the 3,000 pound hood (cars were made of metal in the old days, you little chickens), stick a ballpoint pen in the carburetor to let some air in, start it, wait till the flames shot out of the little flapper thing, close the hood, and drive to the next stop sign. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So just because I have a purse doesn't mean I don't know where to find gasket material or ball chain closey thingies. And I bet my craft room has more tools than you do, mister!

:)

Since Barbara Billingsley died this week :(, I was thinking that maybe this is what we look like to the employees of said stores. And that's not a bad thing, by any means!! Who doesn't want to live like Mrs. Cleaver did??

Stamps: Hero Arts Sew Stylish, Ippity Dots for Sure
Paper: Basic Grey patterned paper, Pirouette Pink
Ink: Basic Black, Pirouette Pink
Accessories: Sticky Strip, May Arts Ribbon, SU Rhinestones, paper flower

This card was for Beate's Hope You Can Cling To Challenge, which was to make a card inspired by lingerie. I thought this girlie must have some spectacular lingerie on to look this good in her dress :)

RIP, Barbara Billingsley - you were a classy lady. I bet you never had to start your car with a pen!

Anyone Else Eat Embossing Powder for Lunch?

I didn't.

But Maddie did. :(

I'm working, and I hear an eating sound, look over and Maddie has her head inside my EP container, lapping it up like it was yogurt!!

I almost had a heart attack!

I grabbed her and headed for the sink where I rinsed her mouth out as best as I could, and that sweet little thing didn't even scratch me or anything. I have no idea how much she swallowed. For the record, it's very hard to wash embossing powder off a barbed little cat tongue, in case that ever comes up on a game show or anything.

What in the world possesses a cat to do a thing like that? She will eat anything. I guess the good news is, I found out that the embossing powder truly is non-toxic. She lived through the night anyway. I hope it ends there! Everyone told me to keep her away from the heat gun. :) She's already pretty shiny.

Between that and all the other craziness this month, this is totally how I feel...

If you don't see the cutest video in the world above this sentence, click here.

But I did find time to make the coolest 10 minute pumpkins for Halloween! Love these awesome Spooky Things rubons!

I just popped them and some Black Flourish Designer jewels onto some white pumpkins from Michaels and BAM - Halloween decorations DONE. Now maybe I can nap.

Yeah, right.

Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?

Everything AND the kitchen sink!

So the challenges for Hope You Can Cling to are still going strong, and I'm having a blast working on them, but way more fun checking out the almost 500 and counting entries in the gallery! I'm just constantly inspired (and stamp buying ENABLED) by the creativity of the papercrafting universe! I've favorited so much stuff my thumb hurts!!

But in addition to that, I had the Austin Shoebox Swap, which was a BLAST, a class in Houston, Regionals in Ft. Worth, a craft fair next weekend and my own stamp class, so October is a little whirlwindy.

So first things first! I made the following card(s) for the Austin Shoebox Swap, for a Hope You Can Cling to challenge by Sara Henton and for a swap I was doing with Yvonne and Chriss - a color challenge that I gave them for our monthly stampy dinner. It's a much beloved combo of mine, and now that Cherry Cobbler is one of my fave colors, I wanted to put it with kraft and blue. I made two variations of this card - one with Chic Boutique and one with Artistic Etchings - just for a different mood with the two different styles of Eiffel Tower. The one on the left uses Basic Grey Whites background paper and the one on the right uses Very Vanilla. They were very simple but super fun. I saw a card somewhere with some dark silhouette images in the foreground that I used for my inspiration, but I can't find the card now. I think it was Michelle Zindorf. Which one of these do you like better?

Then, this weekend, I went to Houston with my beloved Dana for a class with Kitchen Sink Stamps. Holy cow. This was the best class I've been to in a long, long time. Dana said what the class felt like was that very first time you ever stamped - when your mind was just blown and you squealed a lot. And we did squeal a lot.

Notice how we are goofing off and everyone else is working. :)

Their stamps are amazing - they have a very unique photographic quality. You stamp them in multiple steps with different colors to get this amazing detail. They taught us these incredible tricks about combining colors, making shadows, etc. And Maria, the owner and artist, and her family and team, including Makiko Jones, were just the sweetest, most fun bunch of girls. We had a bunch of Splitcoast peeps in the class so the day was just like a fun stampy family reunion.

Maria designed Texas themed stamps JUST FOR OUR CLASS and that's what we got to use - how cool is that? We made this cowboy hat corner bookmark and boot card that I'm sending to one of you. :)

Aren't they amazingly realistic? What fun!!

I hope you are having some sort of crafty fun this beautiful weekend.

Rejection Therapy

A friend sent me a link to this fascinating site called Rejection Therapy.

It's based on a pretty simple and familiar idea, but it's very beautifully expressed here and has some fun little exercises, most of which you already experience every day.For example, every day on my walk, I say to HI to people I pass.

Some of them just astonishingly rudely never even look at me and walk right past. It floors me every single time. That is some serious rejection when someone is a foot from you.

When I moved to New York for college, I had this same feeling every day.

People who say hello to strangers in New York are considered mental defectives, or possibly hookers. But I didn't stop saying hello to people. I just carried my personal Texas with me, and if people didn't like it or thought I was insane, well so be it. Maybe that made them giggle - like, "hey - check out crazy HI lady with the funny accent!" A giggle is always a happy ending. :)

So today I bring you some rejection therapy. I came up with a fun little technique that I submitted to be considered for a demonstration at the regional in Ft. Worth and - BAM! Rejected! :(

BUT - it's cute as heck, and so I'm giving to all of you instead! That's therapy, right? So I'm gonna enter this in Shelli's Creative Challenge instead!!

Now what this technique does is give you new and different way to use your embossing folders. Have you ever just wanted a stamp that looked like your Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder? Maybe you didn't want the raised surface, just the pattern, like this...Maybe you wanted a stamp that looked just like our fun spiderweb embossing folder! I did.

So I'm gonna show you how to do this in a fun video tutorial.

In exchange for this tutorial today, I want you all to be sure and visit my friend Carolyn King, who is doing her AMAZING Heart to Heart card drive to benefit the caregivers who do the incredible job of caring for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease. You can send a card, see some gorgeous creations, read her inspiring story, and win more than $1000 in stamping goodies, just for doing a good deed!

So you ready?

Take a gander. (If you don't see a video player below, click here)

Hope You Can Cling To

Today is a very special day on Splitcoast! We are kicking off a month long card drive benefitting the patients battling breast cancer at the UT MD Anderson Cancer center in Houston. This is near and dear to my heart, as you know if you read about Maureen.

Handmade cards are powerful things, and I know we are going to really lift the spirits of some special ladies. So I hope you'll come make a few cards for this drive!

We have challenges every day in October (3 today), lots of prizes, surprises and more! :)

My challenge for today is here. I know you want to make one!!

I made my card with the most adorable little witch in the WORLD! She's Witchy from The Cat's Pajamas and SERIOUSLY COULD SHE BE ANY CUTER?? Or her green cat??

I colored her with Copics to match my Pixie Pink and Basic Grey background.
I really hope you'll join us this month for a terrific cause. It's a fantastic excuse to spend a little time in the old stamp cave.

Loveyameanitbye

Stamping in the 3rd Dimension

Okay - maybe it's not as dramatic as it sounds... I wanted you to imagine some Star Trekkie stamping fusion that altered the space-time continuum.

BUT - it's cool.

I love doing altered items, but I don't enjoy:

• Trying to line things up straight, as that is not one of my spiritual gifts
• Wrapping paper around round tins because it always gets a little off and then the adhesive is already eternal and you rip it off, cuss, throw everything away and decide that people don't really need presents anyway

So, imagine how thrilled I was to successfully master the stamp-space continuum with the help of a Fiskars Easy stamp press and some so-much-easier-than-paper Sticky Back Canvas!

Now if you're like me, you sometimes buy new toys and neglect them, which is what I did with all these things. But then, when I found them all in a little pile together - VOILA - a stampy epiphany occurs! In this case, I altered a tea can and filled it with crafty goodies.

Stamps: Technique Tuesday (Provence alphabet and Fall on me) Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa Brown Paper: Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Back Canvas Accessories: Golden Fluid Acrylics (Pthalo Blue, Green Gold), Fiskars Easy Stamp Press, blank tea can

It was so cool I had to get it on film. I know - two tutorials in a row - pigs are probably flying around outside right now. Don't get used to it!! :)

But here's the video PROOF that I have actually played with some of the things I've bought. Click here if you don't see the player. And after you watch it - create art! :)

Hehe....

So...

I had some technology issues this week that made me feel a little....

Stamps: Kraftin' Kimmie Drucilla & sentiments Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Brocade Blue and Basic Grey patterned paper Accessories: SU label punch, glitter brads and pearls, Copic Markers, Corner Chomper

Pin pokey voodoo girly!! hehe..

Thanks to my Kraftin' Kimmie voodoo doll though, they have been resolved and I'm back in business, and happy to be blogging.

I made this card for the Kraftin' Kimmie Challenge #47 today, which was to use purple, green and orange. A purrrfect warm up for Halloween, and my oh my doesn't it look sassy on little Drucilla??!! I love her sassy brand of voodoo..

The little voodoo pins I embellished with my teeny SU! pearls and they look so cute and real!
Maybe you shouldn't have been so bad little voodoo doll!

I used purple, orange and green glitter brads - yes, I stopped hoarding them for this card - and they are so sparkly and fun!

I made the layers all wonky because I feel like where Drucilla goes, chaos follows!! :)

Bodies in Motion Tend to Stay in Motion

And bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.

Yes, it's true. I have finally found an application for stupid physics.

Poetry!

These little phrases are so poetic! How about - for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Beautiful!

If only those physics classes had been about beautiful language and not stupid made up numbers and equations, then I could have absorbed a few things!

Instead, that pretty singsong phrase popped into my head when I saw this little body in motion.

The gymnastics when you throw a mouse defy all those laws of physics anyway.

Oh - that reminds me. There was a fun feline challenge for Teapot Tuesday that gave me a chance to bust a move with some new toys - my eyelet nesties, (my addiction to these I blame 100% on Chriss) and my SASSTASTIC new Coffee, Tea or Meow set from the Cat's Pajamas! Stamps: TCP Coffee, Tea or Meow Ink: Ranger Wild Honey, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Basic Grey, Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Nestabilities, MFT ribbon, Tasteful Trim Die, Spellbinders Wizard, Big Shot

What are you stamping? I have been playing with the new Letterpress Plates for the Big Shot and I'm in love! I have a review for you coming up! Who is working on Christmas cards? Who just screamed when I asked that? :)

I haven't updated the Blue List in a while and I wanted to add some things I've been loving lately.

This mango limeade.
This AMAZING, 100% dry, not stinky tinted sunscreen
This all natural non-toxic colored pencil blending solution
This "crack for cats" supplement the beasts go nuts for (good for finding hiding animals)
These fluid acrylics you can mix with water and get beautiful saturated color and transparency.
These crazy delicious mixes.

And you of course :)

Loveyameanitbye.

Lazy Stamping - can you dig it?

I'm a lazy stamper. So what? Maybe you're a lazy stamper and you appreciate that in a blogger. Maybe you're NOT lazy, but you want to be so that you can have more time for vampire movies or something.

Regardless of which category you fall into, I think you'll enjoy my lazy technique today. I used it to color my adorable little creature on this card - and it's so quick and easy you'll just start coloring everything that isn't moving!Stamps: Doodle Factory Creatures II Ink: Memento Paper: Basic Grey, Crumb Cake,

Accessories: Tim Holtz die, SU Label Punch, Webster's Pages trim.

I did not invent this technique, but I sure enjoy the heck out of it! I call it Copic palette blending, and it involves... well, you'll just have to watch the video!

Ingredients required? An image stamped with Memento ink, two Copic markers, a non-porous surface and some serious laziness. So enjoy!

If you don't see a video player above this sentence, click here to view.

I hope you're having a cool, lazy weekend!

Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?

If de Lights Goes Out...

Ack. Just typing that makes me all teary.

*Deep breath*

Marilyn Monroe said, "If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything."

That's certainly true for me.

And Ginger Miluk makes me laugh.

I don't know how I got lucky enough to live in the age of electronic miracles that can connect people (and their irreverent and opinionated ginger cats :)) halfway around the world, but I sure am glad I did.

If de lights go out, I sure will miss my Ginger Miluk. So much. You make me laugh, sweet friend.

I made you a card.

Stamps: Backlit Blooms, Starving Artistamps Ink: Crumb Cake Paper: Crumb Cake, Newsprint
Accessories: Prismacolor Pencils, Prismacolor Premier .005, MFT Striped ribbon, Corner Chomper

I used this sketch, and a little ginger and white.

xo

Marmosets

So yesterday I went to Fort Worth for Stampin' Up! Regionals! It was amazingly amazing as per usual. I learned SO many fantastic tips I can't wait to share with you! That's what I love most about stamping events - the simple little tricks that keep the wonder in our hobby.

I'm headed to CKC San Marcos next weekend with DarthSunshine and my friends at Technique Tuesday and I can't WAIT!

It's a very stampy month.

Now, the drive up, although I left at 5 AM, was uneventful. I saw a beautiful sunrise, went to my fave non-Austin Starbucks in Temple and was fairly alone on the road.

The way BACK, however - another story.

I get out of Ft. Worth and hit the I-35 corridor with an assortment of long haul truckers (one of whom was eating a bowl of soup), drug dealers, serial killers, and people playing video games. And yet, it was safe and orderly.

UNTIL I HIT AUSTIN.

I forget, when I leave town for the day, how completely bizarrely Austinites drive. It's quite terrifying to strangers, and sometimes even residents.

I hit the city limits, and all the sudden people drive like ... well, imagine this.

Take a one eyed marmoset. Liquor him all up with moonshine. Shave his butt. Sit him in a big bucket of habanero extract. Put him behind the wheel.

That's kind of how we roll in A-town.

Disturbing.

Don't believe me? Well... you have two choices. Come here and see the one eyed hot butted drunk marmoset behavior for yourself or.. TALK TO THE TAIL! :)

Stamps: Starving Artistamps Here Kitty Kitty 3, Here Kitty Kitty sentiments
Paper: Basic Black, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie Ink: Basic Black Accessories: White Pencil, Webster's Pages Trim

Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?

America...

Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears...
Backlit Blooms, Prismacolor Pencils

Oh Hai

Oh hai.

I've been battling kitty hurricane brain this week.

The symptoms of hurricane brain are as follows:

• Extreme howling
• Eating like pigs
• Randomly eating things like whole feathers, after running under the bed with said feather so that we can't extract feather prior to it being eaten
• Trying to kill one's little kitteh self by jumping up and hitting one's furry face on the blinds and then walking around with one eye closed like a cat pirate for two days
• Shooting off like a rocket from a complete sleeping state and bouncing around the house like a ping pong ball
• Hurdling your sister while she's running around in the throes of hurricane brain
• Jumping from the floor into an open cabinet full of glassware silently while your owner isn't looking so that when she turns around and sees you she screams and drops a coffee cup
• Screamsqueaking at the window when you know we can't open it because we're getting 5 inches of rain an hour.
• Screamsqueaking all night during the worst part of the storm and then collapsing, like on my card below, the second your servant's alarm goes off for work
  

This card was for the Starving Artistamps sketch this month, which, if you wanna play, might win you some stuff! Like, for example, the new Backlit Blooms - I LOVE these and just got my paws on them today, so stay tuned for pretties. they are gorgeous. I'll be using my Blended Pencil technique for SURE. I think I love the sentiments even more - they're big and bold and have a great font.

The background paper is Basic Grey's Basics White collection, which I adore!! Then I used my new Technique Tuesday Main Street alphabet and my Fiskar's Stamp Press together and I'm in LOVE! I'll be doing a tutorial on this later this month so you can see why.

The bad hurricane brained kitteh is from Here Kitty Kitty 1

The daisy is one of the Stampin' Up! Paper Daisies, colored with Copics, and accented with SU! Rhinestones.

The ribbon is from My Favorite Things, which came in my September VIP kit with that fabby notepaper die.

It's almost the weekend already! What the heck? These short weeks are strange...


Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?

A Tour of Some Random Thoughts

Here are some of my random thought moments over the last few days...

• We have makeup to cover up our freckles, but why hasn't someone invented a makeup that GIVES you freckles?
• What are the odds that someone named Hannibal would be a Cannibal?
• Someone should open a chain of safe places to sell things to avoid the crazy people on Craigslist. Just an office with a security guard and cameras where you can bring your stuff and safely sell it without leading the crazies to your house.
• What if we banned all advertising, signs and campaign contributions and politicians had to actually meet their constituents and make their case PERSONALLY?
• Poetry readings were rapping before rapping was cool.
• Why don't we have those soundwave thingies the OTHERS put up on LOST that make scary Russians fall down and writhe around all helpless? I can think of tons of applications for that.
• I think the undiscovered country is a battery that lasts more than an hour.

I've been trapped inside by the stupid hurricane this week, so I'm feeling more random than normal. I'm also in need of some COLOR.

This was a fun card to make. It was a color challenge for VSN, and you know I love complementary colors, so I enjoyed this one.

The panel the flower is on is actually colored with Copics to match the Summer Sun card base. It started out as a piece of white X-Press It blending card. Then I colored the flower from Every Moment and the background and rounded the corners. The trim is from the new Tasteful Trim Big Shot die which I ADORE. In the vertical piece I punched holes in the center of each oval shape for a little more interest.

The greeting is stamped on some retired DSP and punched with the decorative label punch.

Is this a crazy week with the holiday or what? I don't know what day it is!

I'm headed to Fort Worth Saturday for Regionals - are you gonna be there?


Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?

Am I My Finger's Keeper?

So I see this scene at Starbuck's yesterday that was a life changing moment for the people involved. I was on my second stop there at the end of my walk, and I was sitting right near the door waiting for my smoothie. I'm half watching this angelic little girl in a lavender tutu, fresh from the dance studio two doors down.

She's teeny - as young as you could possibly be and be enrolled in a ballet class and she's beautiful, as is her mother. I still have Harry Potter playing on my Ipod so the first time she yells OW I don't hear her. But in what seemed like a slow motion sequence from a movie, I notice the second sound, and turn my head, and I see that she had her finger in the hinge side of the door, and that the door is now completely closed.

It was like I was underwater with her mom. Both of us jump for the door in painful slowness and free her finger. I go to get ice, but before I go, I see the girl looking at her mother with this accusation on her face.

She is MAD and confused and clearly attributes the injury to her mother not preventing her from playing with the door, not stopping as it closed, or maybe not being able to control gravity. You could see on her face for just a second that she didn't understand why her mother had not controlled destiny just then, and not too long after, after we convinced her to put ice on it (not a good move, in her opinion, by the way) you could see on her face that she understood that maybe she was responsible.

Her mom finally says "Honey, you can't put your fingers in the door" and, sadly, she gets it. Ow. That hurt. My mom didn't save me. Shoot - is this MY deal? Am I going to have to watch out for my fingers now? My mom used to watch out for my fingers. WTH? This stinks. I don't like growing up.

And then, still crying, she hugs her mom so tightly I swear I hear her neck crack.
The whole thing probably took one minute. Maybe two. And her finger was fine. Kids are tough.

But it was pretty amazing watching a little teeny human figure out, maybe for the first time, that she was going to be her finger's keeper at some point. It was sweet and sad at the same time. None of us probably remember that happening to ourselves, but I think I will always remember it happening to this little girl.

Stamps: Notably Ornate, Unity Greeting Ink: Basic Black, Bermuda Bay Paper: Whisper White, Vellum, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Webster's Pages Ribbon Trim, MFT Die-Namics Scallop Die, Corner Chomper, Circle Punch 1.75", Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Big Shot (Stampin' Up! Supplies available here.)

If I knew who she was, I'd send her this card, but I don't.

So instead, I will give one of you the 25 free Unity stamps from Friends with Flair Friday!

There were 73 comments - 72 here and one sweet lady who posted on Facebook because she couldn't leave a comment here. Random.org picked lucky #38!
So jmahugger - please email me your address so Unity can send you your goodies.

And people - watch your fingers....

xo

Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?

{all you need}

... is love.

Well, and quite possibly the Bananas Foster Hagen Dazs Ice Cream I just discovered.

Wow.

But love is good too :)

So are owls.

So is Friends with Flair Friday! I have been longing to play with my August kit of the month goodies and I finally got to. I know, it's September! But it's just as cute, right??

I had SOOO much fun making this card. First, I was inspired by Julia's Ways to Use It Challenge, which was to use one sheet of paper. I had to make every paper element on the card from one piece of paper, and let me tell you, this was an awesome challenge. The card base is easy - that's half the sheet. But then I needed some FLAIR for Friends with Flair! :)

So I took a strip of the remainder and used my new MFT Die-Namics die to make the notepaper edge, except after I looked at the notepaper edge, I noticed how cute the opposite shape was too, so I used that. I sprayed it with Smooch Spritz (River Mossy) to make it all blue and glittery. Then, because I loved that look so much I punched some hearts out and sprayed them too.
I stuck them in between the diamonds I stamped the little border with in Cajun Craze. I stamped and colored the owl with Copics, and I used a Tim Holtz embossing folder on another strip to make a wood grain background behind the owl. The greeting and heart from the set are also in Cajun Craze.

So when I was done making my Just One Sheet card, I was left with this. I think I was pretty efficient!I was so efficient that I think it gave me good luck....

Or wait - did it give YOU good luck? I think it's you!! Because it just so happens I'm in possession of the magic blinkie that is going to win one of you TONS of free stamps! WHEE!!



I will do a random drawing on Saturday from my commenters and my lucky winner gets 25 Unity Stamps! Yipee! Congrats in advance.

And remember. Besides stamps - all you need is love :)


Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?